FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention is of a manipulator that in particular can work optionally under such a special environment as space, equipped with an improved reliability end effector.
The conventional space applied manipulator, as mentioned in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 64-17102, was equipped with an actuator whose specification differs between the joints, but the mechanism and electronic unit were not made redundant. Thus a system in which the actuator is replaced with a preliminarily prepared actuator when it gets into trouble was applied.
Because, in the above mentioned conventional technology, the actuator specification differs between the joints, individual joints need to be produced according to each different specification, so that there was a problem in that the man-hours for procurement, processing and test of each part and the costs increased.
Further, because each joint individual redundancy, spare joints are not interchangeable between different joints despite complete (double) redundant composition, thus the maintainability was not so satisfactory.